PERFORMANCEPROVENTRIEDTESTEDTORTUREDSee the threaded holes on this flywheel? You caneasily access them from above or below the chassis,depending on which vehicle you install it in.

BUKU SPEED TUNE CLUTCH

Buku is well known for its easy-to-adjust tuned pipes for just about every nitro engine on the market. These pipes have been around for years and achieved success on the track and among backyard bashers. But a company can’t sur- vive with just one line of products; it has to offer something new. The BukuSpeed Tune clutch is that well-thought-out new product. It’s an adjustable off-roadclutch for use on big- and small-block nitro engines. You may be thinking, “That’s noth-ing new; we’ve seen adjustable clutches before,” but you haven’t seen anything likethis trick clutch.out; then, when you add the centripetalforce of the flywheel, it adds more force tothe setscrews and locks them in place. Thestock setting was a great starting point, asmy truggy felt like it did before I installedit. The track I race on is on the loose side,so I loosened up the clutch shoes slightly,and my traction out of the turns increased.Just for fun, I reset the tension and thenincreased it; my truck accelerated harderout of the turns. This time, the truck had alot of axle-snapping power when I nailedthe throttle.I really like this clutch and am excitedto have it in my truggy. The only problemI see with this system is that if you aren’tpaying attention to the screws you adjustwhile you turn the flywheel, you maymake an adjustment to a clutch shoe thatyou already tweaked. To prevent this, Isimply marked up the flywheel at each set-screw location so that I can tell them apartwhile making my adjustments. I still havea lot more testing to do on this clutch;there are so many ways you can tweakit. You can have two loose shoes and onetight one, or maybe set each to come in ata different rate. Only more time with theclutch will tell. —Kevin HetmanskiThe Buku clutch consists of a flywheel,clutch shoes, springs and shims. The fly-wheel has three tapped holes on the out-side edge, and they line up with one edgeof each spring. The springs are attachedto the long-wear aluminum clutch shoes.Now here’s where it gets fancy: insidethose tapped holes are setscrews; theyapply pressure to the springs and that, inturn, changes the spring pressure on eachof the clutch shoes. So that allows you toadjust the spring tension on each clutchshoe individually, and you can make youradjustments without having to removeany parts from the vehicle.I installed the clutch on my RC8T FTChampionship Edition truggy. I’d beenrunning it for a while, and I was lookingfor a slight advantage at the track. The in-stallation took me a little longer than usu-al because it was my first installation ofthis type of clutch. Now that I understandhow it works, I’m confident it will go morequickly the next time around. I set thetension on the springs to the recommend-ed settings and ran some laps. One of myconcerns about this system was that thesetscrews may loosen and fall out whenmy engine was running, but that wasn’tthe case. The spring tension alone on thesetscrews prevents them from rotating

Open the box to find springs, shims,a flywheel and three clutch shoes.SOURCESBuku Power bukupower.com